Russell Payne: The Talking Tradesman on Why Construction Marketing Needs to Get Personal
In this episode of The Build Up, host Dan, sits down with Russell Payne — third-generation
tradesman and host of The Talking Tradesman podcast — for an honest conversation about
the mental health crisis within the construction industry, and the role brands and marketing
can play in driving change.
Russell shares his powerful personal story: from growing up on the tools and running his
family painting and decorating business by 17, to facing struggles with mental health that
ultimately pushed him to become an advocate for change. What begins as a deeply personal
narrative expands into a wider discussion about how the construction industry, particularly
those shaping its public voice through branding and marketing, can help create a culture
where vulnerability isn’t a weakness, but a strength.
Together, Dan and Russell explore the opportunity that brands have to go beyond
surface-level messaging and build genuine connection by engaging with real issues like
mental health. From championing authentic stories to creating safe spaces for open
dialogue, Russell explains how companies in the built environment can use their platforms
not just to sell, but to support, and why that matters now more than ever.
This episode is essential listening for marketers, brand managers, contractors, and anyone
who wants to use their voice to build something more meaningful in construction.
The Talking Tradesman:
This podcast is produced by dissident creative agency, the original disrupters of construction marketing. This podcast is born out of our passion to create conversations that push boundaries as hard as our content!
If breaking rules and standing out is your thing, we want to hear from you...
Transcript
Welcome to another episode of the build up. I'm Dan, the creative director of
Speaker:dissident creative agency. We are a social first creative agency
Speaker:that specializes in working with construction brands to create epic social
Speaker:media content, and some other stuff. I
Speaker:think probably that'll do. Yeah. And today
Speaker:I am joined by Russell Payne, who is the host of the Talking
Speaker:Tradesman podcast. I shouldn't have needed to look at my
Speaker:notes on that because I can see it on
Speaker:your hoodie. And it's been
Speaker:an absolute pleasure. I hope this goes well. Two podcast hosts on
Speaker:What could go wrong, right? Absolutely, mate. I mean, I keep being called
Speaker:a podcast host, which is a massive compliment because I'm
Speaker:We just like swap notes the whole time. It's
Speaker:an absolute pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for coming over.
Speaker:We're gonna have like a bit of a discussion around kind of your background.
Speaker:I really want to push people towards your podcast. But
Speaker:I think we want to talk about podcasts in general as a marketing tool, kind
Speaker:of how brands and content creators can kind
Speaker:of utilize them. And we'll try
Speaker:and figure it out. We both know that there is a massive there's
Speaker:a massive opportunity there but I think a lot of people feel
Speaker:like it's still like oversaturated because they've been going for so long and stuff. We'll
Speaker:get into it but I would be
Speaker:remiss without hearing a little bit more about yourself and
Speaker:kind of your backstory because I'd be really
Speaker:interested to hear a little bit more about that and what led you up to creating
Speaker:the Talking Tradesman. So if you want Could you give us a run through of your history in
Speaker:the trade and up to the point where you
Speaker:Yeah, of course, Dan. You'll have to push me along, mate, if I'm dragging
Speaker:it out a bit too much, because it's probably a 10-year journey into starting the
Speaker:podcast. There's a lot of background stuff that led me there. Trade-wise,
Speaker:we'll start there. So I am a third generation painter and
Speaker:decorator. My son is now my apprentice, so he's fourth generation.
Speaker:I don't know whether that's really a good thing to shout about or quite sad,
Speaker:but you know, we're in the painting and decorating industry. It's obviously working, you
Speaker:know what I mean? There's a draw there, isn't there? So family business, I've
Speaker:spent most of my life, in fact I've spent my life in and
Speaker:around construction. I've done a few different roles. I started
Speaker:going to work with my dad when I was about eight years old, more
Speaker:out of necessity than anything. My parents split up
Speaker:when I was eight. I stayed with my dad. So like summer holidays, Easter
Speaker:holidays, Christmas, I had to go to work with him because he had
Speaker:to work. So there was no option there. There was an option for me as to,
Speaker:I wasn't for, it wasn't child labor, like you're coming to graft. But
Speaker:it was a choice of you can either sit around reading magazines,
Speaker:I was going to say, I feel like we're of a similar age
Speaker:where it's like you could have been on the generation one Game Boy or
Speaker:I don't even think they were out, if I'm honest with you. Mobile phones certainly weren't.
Speaker:So yeah, technology wise, it was just non-existent. It
Speaker:was like 442 magazine. Yeah, and a packet of crisps. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So my dad was there, he was like, look, You can read magazines or I will
Speaker:pay you a nominal amount, you know, like peanuts really, pocket money. You
Speaker:can start stripping wallpaper, you can start doing a bit of prep work, this,
Speaker:that and the other. So I did. And the culmination of
Speaker:that is by the age of 15, I was running jobs for him. So
Speaker:I was fully immersed in the business. I actually took over the business at
Speaker:17. So I've been running the business now 24 years, which will give my age
Speaker:away. So yeah, been in the trade for a long
Speaker:time. You took it over from 17, so what did your dad do, retire or something? No,
Speaker:family's for you. Me and my dad went our own separate ways. So
Speaker:we had a big bus stop at 17, I actually didn't speak to him for eight years. So
Speaker:yeah, I had a choice. There was a one year sort
Speaker:of like period where I left school, started doing agency work, doing
Speaker:that kind of thing, and then quickly realized that
Speaker:actually decorating wasn't that bad. And yeah, picked
Speaker:up the business at 17. Financial,
Speaker:mate, that was my drive at that point in time because I knew I'd
Speaker:got the skills to do it and I've got this opportunity sat
Speaker:there of like a full man's wage versus, you
Speaker:know, menial sort of tasks. I did well at school. There's
Speaker:a lot of sort of like tradesmen out there that will sit there and go, they went into the
Speaker:trade because they didn't do very well in their exams. As
Speaker:it happened, I did pretty well, passed all my exams, did my A-levels,
Speaker:but just decided that academia wasn't for me at that point. Ironically,
Speaker:Were you, just out of interest, were you one of these kids that
Speaker:was like not super into learning, it
Speaker:just kind of came naturally. It's just like you're like one of these people that can
Speaker:just like a sponge. It kind of came in and you could do relatively
Speaker:Yeah, I didn't put any effort in me. I was one of those frustrating kids,
Speaker:I guess, that didn't revise and still passed everything. Same. When
Speaker:I was young, My focus was, I just wanted to play football, that
Speaker:was it. I was never going to be a professional, I was never one of these could-have-beens. I
Speaker:used to play to a relatively decent amateur level and
Speaker:that was it, that was all I was interested in was playing football. My family circumstances
Speaker:dictated to me that I needed to earn money and get out of the house, if
Speaker:I'm honest. So that was it, I was like, I need to do
Speaker:something to get myself independent. So quite,
Speaker:I had to grow up very quick. I was very mature for my age and yeah,
Speaker:took over the business at 17. You had a child as well, did you say? No, no,
Speaker:I got a younger sister. Okay. But the way my family split, um,
Speaker:I always stayed with my dad. Um, and my dad, he
Speaker:was a painter and decorator himself, so self-employed, but
Speaker:he used to work seven days a week. Um, he
Speaker:was a big drinker. Uh, so I raised myself, mate. Yeah.
Speaker:you know, very independent from that age, got
Speaker:into the trade and yeah, here I am 24 years later. I've
Speaker:worked as a contract manager in amongst that, so I did go shirt
Speaker:and trousers for a short period of time. So
Speaker:yeah, I've worked within my industry, I've touched on every demographic, I've
Speaker:done commercial work, I've done private work, I've done council work.
Speaker:And now the business has settled in high-end domestic.
Speaker:So I've been in that demographic for about the past five, six years now. Are
Speaker:you still on the tours? Yeah, still very much on the tours, mate. Yeah, 99% of the
Speaker:time I'm hands-on. I've
Speaker:tried running it from a management position. I don't know whether it's
Speaker:me being too, I need the control, but certainly
Speaker:the industry that I work in now and the demographic that I work in
Speaker:now, being high-end domestic, is very difficult to
Speaker:expand because the quality of the finish has got to
Speaker:be like exquisite every time and the labor that's
Speaker:available it isn't always possible to achieve that with a big team. So
Speaker:yeah I've settled into that still very much on the tools and then also
Speaker:Mad. Really really cool story I've got
Speaker:so many more questions but I might save those
Speaker:for another time because it's a the
Speaker:family business type thing and relationships
Speaker:Perhaps that's better say for your podcast and kind of
Speaker:how that affects you and things like
Speaker:that. On the tools, doing great, set
Speaker:up on your own, doing your own stuff. And then how
Speaker:Yeah, so the podcast, as I said before, it was probably
Speaker:a 10-year journey to get there, which might sound a bit strange because the podcast has only
Speaker:been out a year. I'll try and condense this. So,
Speaker:30 years old, went through a divorce. My
Speaker:podcast, as you're aware, but for your listeners, centers around raising
Speaker:mental health awareness, breaking down the stigmas around talking about mental health.
Speaker:and construction being at a point of crisis when
Speaker:it comes to mental health. The statistics within construction at
Speaker:the minute are horrendous. Yeah, I mean, are you aware of
Speaker:the figures? No, not to the number. I
Speaker:can run through them quickly for you. They're hard to hear, mate, I'll be honest with
Speaker:you. When I say construction's a crisis, what highlights
Speaker:that? The construction industry in the UK is the worst industry to
Speaker:be in for male suicide. It's got the highest figures. Not
Speaker:only are they the highest figures, you're four times more likely as a man in construction
Speaker:to take your own life than another trade. On
Speaker:average, at the moment, two men a day are taking their
Speaker:own life in the trades. That's 14 people a week. Credit
Speaker:to On The Tools, they've just launched a big campaign called The Lost City.
Speaker:And that highlights those numbers. So that's 700 men a year, 7,000 men
Speaker:over the last decade. And
Speaker:that's the point that we're at at the moment. It's not being talked about enough. So I
Speaker:launched the podcast to try and address that. The reason that
Speaker:I sort of, my origin story in that, as I probably started 10 years ago,
Speaker:went through a divorce at around 30 years old, and that was the first point
Speaker:in my life where I ever paid any attention to my mental health.
Speaker:I was completely ignorant to it before then. I would have been that lad that
Speaker:would have sat around going, I haven't got it, mate. Mental
Speaker:health, I ain't got it. Which I know now, to caveat,
Speaker:is complete nonsense. Everybody has mental health, just
Speaker:the same way as physical health. It might just be that your mental health is really good.
Speaker:And generally speaking, when something is good, you don't pay any attention. I
Speaker:like that, mate. You probably didn't wake up this morning and think to
Speaker:yourself, I've got a left arm. You would have if it was broken.
Speaker:Yes. But you know what I mean? Yeah. You don't pay
Speaker:any attention to things that aren't broken. So a lot
Speaker:of people go through life with mental health being in a good position. They
Speaker:That was my point. So when I went through that divorce, I went through a
Speaker:two and a half year legal battle. solicitor's fees, all
Speaker:the usual stuff. It wasn't any different to a lot of people's divorces,
Speaker:but it was not a smooth one. Brought along with
Speaker:it its challenges on a mental perspective. And that was the
Speaker:first time where I personally experienced things like anxiety,
Speaker:a couple of potential borderline panic attacks relating
Speaker:to the proceedings that were going on. That was the first time in
Speaker:my life that I'd ever paid any attention to mental health. Fortunately,
Speaker:I had somebody in my life that pointed it out to me. Initially, I
Speaker:tried to push back on it. I was told, you're
Speaker:experiencing anxiety. My response was, of course I'm not, I'm fine. Made
Speaker:myself look into it. Once I actually realized that I was, my
Speaker:way of dealing with it, I never went to therapy, maybe I should. I'd actually, personally,
Speaker:I'd love to explore therapy. I've never done it. I use that age-old excuse
Speaker:of I've not got time. But I'd love to explore it.
Speaker:However, what I did was my own version of therapy, which was to jump
Speaker:into education. So I became fascinated by
Speaker:the physical manifestation of your thoughts. Yes. And what I mean by
Speaker:that is if I were to say to you, you do
Speaker:realize that high stress levels can cause heart attacks, you wouldn't argue with
Speaker:Yet, if you were to try and say that in reverse, so if you would, you
Speaker:know, what I've always found interesting here is the yin and yang of it. Everybody
Speaker:accepts that stress can cause various
Speaker:physical ailments, whether that's, you know, bad stomachs, bad skin,
Speaker:heart attacks in the extreme, all sorts. If
Speaker:you try and reverse that and go, well, if your positive thoughts can have positive
Speaker:effects on the body, most people kind of go, oh, that's like voodoo. You
Speaker:know what I mean? It's a bit hippy, yeah, which has always intrigued me. But
Speaker:I went down this big rabbit hole of education so I became fascinated with
Speaker:what was triggered by my own physical manifestations of stress. So
Speaker:I started studying psychology, started studying philosophy, Buddhism,
Speaker:evolutional psychology and if I'm honest it was to
Speaker:understand myself. So I went down this journey and
Speaker:it really hit a chord where I started to find a bit of purpose in what I was doing.
Speaker:So I decided I was going to formally study psychology and
Speaker:I was going to lean into counselling and therapy, that kind
Speaker:of thing, that kind of field. So I started doing a BSc Honours degree
Speaker:in psychology and when you go so far down that you have
Speaker:to pick one of three options. You have to go into sports psychology, child
Speaker:psychology or counselling and therapy. I wanted to do
Speaker:counselling and therapy so I went that way. To get some experience, I
Speaker:started volunteering at Samaritans. So I did 18 months volunteering.
Speaker:In fact, I've only recently stopped doing that because of the amount of time that I'm
Speaker:now putting into the podcast. But we're getting
Speaker:there, don't worry. I'm gonna loop it round. 18 months
Speaker:worth of volunteering at Samaritans. What I started to realize,
Speaker:because I was taking the phone calls, I mean, Samaritans for anyone listening, incredible
Speaker:organization. If anyone's struggling out there, 116123 is always
Speaker:somebody listening, I'll always put that out there. I
Speaker:was taking these phone calls and what I realized was a
Speaker:lot of the people I was talking to were people in the trades. Not
Speaker:that I would ask for the information, but being in the trades myself
Speaker:you could quickly kind of working out. There's a patter, there's
Speaker:something going on there. I'd sort of ask the question, how's
Speaker:work? How's your work life? Oh, yeah, you know, I'm under a bit of pressure. I'm a
Speaker:builder or I'm under a bit of pressure. I'm a carpenter, whatever it might be.
Speaker:And I started to realize I'm speaking to
Speaker:a lot of trades people. So then I started looking into the statistics and
Speaker:I found out some of the stats that I've just told you. I mean, suicide
Speaker:is also the biggest killer of men under 50. And
Speaker:then you correlate that with, well, hold on. So it's the biggest killer
Speaker:in men under 50. And if I'm in construction, I'm four times more
Speaker:likely to start my own life. We're already 75% of
Speaker:all suicides are men. So as a man in
Speaker:construction under 50, it's
Speaker:not a particularly good place to be in theory. So
Speaker:I started looking at this and it was offhand a
Speaker:conversation with my wife one day. I went home after doing a shift at Samaritans and
Speaker:said, I feel like I need to bring together the
Speaker:knowledge that I'm gaining through education and the experience and
Speaker:the training of Samaritans and somehow target my industry because
Speaker:there's a problem. It was an offhand comment and
Speaker:I turned around and I said, maybe I could do a podcast and start talking to
Speaker:people, get people talking. And that was always the thing, people need to talk, men
Speaker:need to talk. Men don't talk. A lot of
Speaker:people say that. And that was where it was born. I've
Speaker:got to credit my wife, if I'm honest, because it was a concept to
Speaker:me thrown out very haphazardly and she
Speaker:ran away with it. So a couple of days after we had this
Speaker:conversation, which if I'm honest, I forgot about, she
Speaker:turned around to me and went, you're free on Tuesday. I said, no,
Speaker:I'm at work. Why? We're going to see an office space. Why do we need an office
Speaker:space? you know, the podcast. I was like, what podcast? And
Speaker:that was how it went, mate. That's how it started. She went
Speaker:and viewed the unit and actually signed the lease without me knowing
Speaker:about it. She went and viewed it and was like, yeah, I viewed it. It's good.
Speaker:12 month tenancy. You know, now you've got to refurb it into a podcast studio. And
Speaker:that was the birth of the Talking Tradesman. And from there,
Speaker:it has took a path I never expected it to. The growth has
Speaker:been brilliant. And it seems to have really hit
Speaker:that hit that spot of where the need is. And
Speaker:I'm privileged to say that I'm now sat here having spoken to over
Speaker:50 guests, I think we're about 56 published episodes, something
Speaker:like that, of people that have wanted to come in and talk about their experiences,
Speaker:not only the low points of mental health, but also the
Speaker:high points as in This is how I've coped with this.
Speaker:You know, I've been in construction for however long. These are the problems. This
Speaker:is how I deal with it. So it offers hopefully insight
Speaker:That's really cool. And so. 50 guests,
Speaker:all based around construction as a
Speaker:Mostly, I'd say probably 40. So I've mixed
Speaker:it in a little bit. So a lot of my guests are in the construction industry, but
Speaker:I've also mixed that in with some mental health professionals, and
Speaker:then just some people that have been through, I guess what I'd
Speaker:describe as extreme mental adversity. So particularly
Speaker:traumatic events that they've sort of gone through, mental resilience.
Speaker:The thing with mental health, it crosses all borders. I'm
Speaker:trying to address a particular audience in construction that are really
Speaker:struggling right now, but those mental health issues, whether
Speaker:it's stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, that
Speaker:crosses all borders, it doesn't matter whether you're a builder, a
Speaker:postman, a policeman, we all have the struggles.
Speaker:So people's tales, whether it's, I'll pick one
Speaker:out of a hat bereavement, everyone's going to experience it, everyone's going
Speaker:to suffer it. So somebody's story of how they've got
Speaker:Absolutely and what I found quite interesting about what you mentioned earlier
Speaker:about when you started to suffer with your own mental
Speaker:health problems is you didn't recognize them as being mental health problems initially and
Speaker:you had to almost get diagnosed by another person to go that's this. And
Speaker:I think being able to, I think there's a lot of talk about, and
Speaker:some people will be quite negative about, are we talking about it enough? Like,
Speaker:you know, let's look at other areas. And people
Speaker:always drum on about mental health, but I think one of the amazing benefits
Speaker:of just talking about mental health, even if you're not coming to a conclusion, this
Speaker:is how you fix it, because it's quite as difficult to fix, is
Speaker:the fact that a lot of these guys don't even realize that they've got anxiety,
Speaker:for instance, they don't know how to notice the signs of anxiety. Yeah. And
Speaker:once you notice the signs of anxiety, you can then treat it to
Speaker:some extent. But if you don't know what it is, you go,
Speaker:Oh, my God, like, I feel terrible. As soon as you someone diagnoses you
Speaker:with something, you go, Oh, that and so
Speaker:and and you with that you have this this and this and you start to feel these things
Speaker:you know and you're noticing you're having these thoughts on the regular you're noticing you can't sleep
Speaker:because you yeah and you're like oh yeah that's me you go okay at
Speaker:least that's progress towards um a solution which
Speaker:is to get rid of it ideally or at least imagine i mean there's
Speaker:a caveat there which is that a lot of these things are natural
Speaker:I guess a little bit of an issue around labeling and that's where the pushback comes because
Speaker:people also go well everything's out labeled anxiety or depression
Speaker:now and there are examples of that you can't deny it
Speaker:however there's also the it's a
Speaker:fact that everybody will experience anxiety because it's a human
Speaker:emotion. We're meant to have it. It would have been a survival thing. So
Speaker:evolutional psychology would have taught us anxiety was developed because
Speaker:we needed it to survive, right? Because that bush
Speaker:that was rattling, that could have been a tiger, it could have been a bear, it could have been a wolf, whatever.
Speaker:That's a natural thing that is installed in us to
Speaker:react to dangerous situations. The problem is
Speaker:the society we live in now, stimulus around us
Speaker:is very, very different. So the anxiety that we now
Speaker:get is over like work deadlines and things of
Speaker:Exactly. And often you can't cure
Speaker:it. I can't do anything. I can't say to you
Speaker:now, right, Dan, if you follow steps one to three, you will never have anxiety
Speaker:What you can do is you can recognize it, identify it and then build
Speaker:up your own coping mechanisms. And the problem with non-acceptance
Speaker:of mental health is you can't build a coping mechanism to
Speaker:something that you won't accept exists. And
Speaker:those coping mechanisms are the ones everyone knows. Exercise, great. Get
Speaker:out fresh air, it's great. You know, just going for a walk,
Speaker:you'll feel better. You know, getting out, moving, talking,
Speaker:talking to somebody. So one of the great things I took away
Speaker:from working with Samaritans, because when you're a volunteer
Speaker:with Samaritans, you're not allowed to give advice. It's a
Speaker:listening service. And what I got to witness firsthand
Speaker:was the power of that. Because through the power of a conversation, whether it
Speaker:was 10 minutes or an hour, By the end of the phone call, 90% of
Speaker:people were in a totally different headspace. I
Speaker:haven't given them a cure or a solution. I've just sat and listened and
Speaker:empathized with what they had to say. And often people just need
Speaker:to organize their thoughts and then bring it out the other side and
Speaker:they're in a much better spot. So the talking side
Speaker:of it, that it's really important. It's its
Speaker:I mean, I won't go too much into like my own issues with mental
Speaker:health, because that's not what this conversation is about. But it's
Speaker:something that sort of triggered my mind a little
Speaker:bit was I've suffered for years with health anxiety. The classic example
Speaker:of like, I'm terrified of getting cancer, even though I live really unhealthily.
Speaker:Like I should really try and look after my diet and
Speaker:sleep and stress levels and stuff like that. I'm terrified of getting cancer. And
Speaker:there was a, I remember the first
Speaker:time it was triggered, I think I've always had these kind of weird thoughts. And
Speaker:this is the thing that it's like spotting things that aren't an issue until they've boiled
Speaker:up to being an issue. I'd always had thoughts about like dying young
Speaker:and stuff like that. I thought, you know, that's the way I'm going. And
Speaker:I had the problem with my ankle. And they had an MRI scan and
Speaker:they saw this big black mass in my leg and they were like, okay.
Speaker:And then I remember like going into the specialist and
Speaker:looking at the MRI results and he's like, oh, I didn't realize it was you.
Speaker:I wish I could have saved you some time. I've had to refer you on to a specialist. And
Speaker:he was like really kind of like scatty with like, he didn't want to
Speaker:tell me anything. He didn't want to show me anything because it wasn't. So
Speaker:I sort of perceived that as being something other than
Speaker:it was. And he said, we found this area
Speaker:in your leg that's this big black mass. So we need to
Speaker:investigate this further. I'm gonna send you on to a specialist. It's probably this, but
Speaker:if it's something serious, obviously we'll
Speaker:deal with it." And I was like, what do you mean serious? He's like, cancer. And
Speaker:I was like, I could feel my whole body just
Speaker:go woof. And this like wave of like fear
Speaker:came over me. And I'd had like moles and stuff checked out before and
Speaker:it wasn't a big deal, but it was the way that this, on this particular day, I
Speaker:remember the drive home, And there was like, my body felt different.
Speaker:My mind felt different. I was like, I was like an, almost like an out of body experience and
Speaker:stuff like that. And anyway, I'm
Speaker:getting to the point where I actually spoke to somebody about this.
Speaker:Who was, who's the psychologist. Cause I was like, I was feeling so bad. I
Speaker:couldn't function. I couldn't look after my kids. I was so terrified all
Speaker:the time, but I didn't know what was going on. So I just thought I was dying.
Speaker:I just, I was a hundred percent convinced I'm going to die. And
Speaker:there was, I was waiting for these results. I was ringing the guy up the next day. He was trying
Speaker:to like put me at ease and I wasn't listening to him because I'd only focused
Speaker:on this one thing. And I remember speaking
Speaker:to somebody, it's like a twofold thing. I remember speaking to my friend who's a psychologist and
Speaker:she asked me some questions. She's like, you've got health anxiety.
Speaker:What's happened is you've been given some information and
Speaker:you've taken that to the worst possible scenario without looking at
Speaker:the facts. and kind of construing
Speaker:them all as like, you know, the guys literally said, it's very,
Speaker:very unlikely this is cancer, but I have to refer you on to a specialist to
Speaker:rule it out. And I wasn't listening
Speaker:to that. I'm like, what about the 15, the 10%, the 5% or whatever? So
Speaker:as soon as she told me I had health anxiety, she's like, so first
Speaker:of all, like I understood what was going on in my body. So I
Speaker:could kind of go, okay, like there's a part of me that's like, like,
Speaker:on one half of me says constantly to myself all down, you're
Speaker:going to die, you're going to die, you're going to die. Chemo, blah, blah, blah,
Speaker:all these, you're going through all these like stuff in your head, you're not going to see
Speaker:your kids grow up, blah, blah, blah. And then there's like a little part that's
Speaker:growing and growing that's saying, it's just health anxiety, don't listen to
Speaker:it, you know. But having that kind of like, almost, although it's like
Speaker:I say, it is a, it's a
Speaker:name for giving it a name, giving it a term, sometimes can be
Speaker:a little bit more difficult. But at least I knew then that like, I've
Speaker:just triggered something that just was laying dormant in me. But
Speaker:then it literally broke me like it was it was so weird.
Speaker:Like I just could not function as a person. I didn't realize that, you
Speaker:know, you don't realize that these things can come out
Speaker:of nowhere. And it's like, it's never been the same since
Speaker:I'm still terrified of dying of cancer. But another
Speaker:thing that you talked about
Speaker:then that I think is really important is just the fact that just being able
Speaker:to speak to someone, even if
Speaker:they don't give you a solution, especially with things like health anxiety, is
Speaker:enough to go, I sound like a complete nutter. Like I sound
Speaker:like a crazy person, all of these crazy thoughts that
Speaker:I've got in my head. being able to talk and sort of
Speaker:like get them out of your head can sometimes either
Speaker:make you realize, you know, I'm actually like, I don't, this isn't, this
Speaker:isn't real. This isn't happening. These are just my thoughts. My
Speaker:Especially if you leave it alone, you know, but if you like, you
Speaker:know, say if you get, if you can get that kind of stuff out and speak to someone and
Speaker:they can go, it doesn't sound like you're in any
Speaker:The thing with it Dan, like what you just said there, you had a particular
Speaker:event that triggered it to a point where you could no longer hide it. So
Speaker:it came to the surface, you couldn't keep it in. A lot of the time
Speaker:what we do is we keep it in, like you said, right up until that
Speaker:point. So there's people out there that will live with various levels
Speaker:of health anxieties, depressions, anxieties over
Speaker:101 things in life, they'll never talk about it. But it
Speaker:will never reach the point where it externalizes itself. To me...
Speaker:I think the best thing we can do is raise awareness as high as we can because,
Speaker:and I'm not going to go down this because this would be a huge rabbit hole, mate, but
Speaker:the education just isn't there. So we're never taught things.
Speaker:And that was my own thing. Like I hit 30 years old and went through a
Speaker:crisis that a lot of people would have struggled with. You
Speaker:know, on paper, I lost everything. I lost my house. I lost my car. I
Speaker:lost my kids, my kids moved 200 miles away. So I went through all this and
Speaker:then two and a half years of legal battles. There's not many people that
Speaker:would get through that without what I experienced. However, nobody
Speaker:in my life, because of the generational thing, like my dad was of
Speaker:a certain generation, I'm of a certain generation, It's,
Speaker:for want of a better word, the man up generation, the men don't
Speaker:cry generation. But nobody ever sat me down. I've
Speaker:never had a conversation about mental health in my life. By
Speaker:30, mental health to me, one of the biggest things I think... that
Speaker:needs to be made completely aware, there's a huge difference between
Speaker:mental health and mental illness. They are not the same. So
Speaker:mental health, everybody has it, mate. That is exactly the same as
Speaker:your physical health. It's a spectrum. Just everyone has
Speaker:it. It's an identifiable thing. You might go your whole life
Speaker:with good mental health. Brilliant. That's fantastic. The
Speaker:problem is people confuse the two. So they confuse the fact that if
Speaker:you're talking about having poor mental health, that means you're mentally ill.
Speaker:No. Mentally ill, those are your diagnosable conditions, your
Speaker:bipolars, your schizophrenics, your things that need
Speaker:medical attention and help. That's a
Speaker:mental illness. Something that is diagnosable and
Speaker:an illness. Mental health is just, that's your spectrum. That's your 100% good
Speaker:at the top, 0%, bad at the bottom. And
Speaker:unfortunately there's quite a lot of people certainly in construction that are walking
Speaker:around maybe only on 20-30% a lot of the time, but
Speaker:they don't want to vocalise it because they fear the labelling of
Speaker:being labelled mentally ill through talking about their mental health.
Speaker:two very different things that sound the same. And that's one
Speaker:of the things that I'm trying to make more mainstream, in
Speaker:that people, if you have a bad day at work,
Speaker:right, I don't know, you get up in the morning, you stub your toe, it's
Speaker:raining outside, you go downstairs, your dog's crapped
Speaker:on the floor, That's your mental health. Your
Speaker:mental health just went from 100 down to 80. You've had
Speaker:a bad start to the day. That is mental health. It's as simple as that. Your
Speaker:mood, the way that
Speaker:you feel in yourself, your levels, that is your mental health. It
Speaker:can go up, it can go down, and things in life will affect it. We're all
Speaker:human, we all have it. It's as simple as that. The
Speaker:problem is because it is so stigmatized at the moment,
Speaker:the talking about it and the image being that
Speaker:it either makes you weak to talk about it or that it makes you mentally
Speaker:ill to talk about it is dangerous because there are so
Speaker:many men in particular. I talk about men,
Speaker:one, because I am one, and two, because the statistics are
Speaker:what they are within construction, which is male-dominated. But obviously,
Speaker:mental health affects all genders. I'll be honest, women are
Speaker:better talking than men. So to
Speaker:me, my mission is to try and level that playing field a little, make
Speaker:it a bit more normal to talk about your mental health, as
Speaker:you would have any other conversation. And that's been the mission
Speaker:And what about results? Are you
Speaker:seeing people come forward from the podcast and being like, this has
Speaker:I've had a lot of really moving messages, mate. I really have some
Speaker:fantastic messages. And one of the big takeaways, and I want to sort of
Speaker:get this one out here, is this. I've had, I think, about
Speaker:56 guests. And there's this conception of men
Speaker:don't bottle talk, men don't talk, men bottle it up. I've
Speaker:actually found because, and here's one thing for you, so out
Speaker:of 56 guests, I've only asked two people to
Speaker:come on. Everybody else has reached out to me and said
Speaker:that they wanted to come on and I've got a story to tell. Amazing. So
Speaker:the way, what this has left me feeling is that actually
Speaker:men do want to talk. We just need to know that there's somebody listening.
Speaker:because, and you'll see it on my top here, let's talk, let's listen. Listening
Speaker:is equally as important because if there's nobody listening, nobody will talk. You
Speaker:know what I mean? We need to know that there's a point in talking. So
Speaker:we need to, again, as a
Speaker:society, as people in an environment at
Speaker:work or socially, we need to take the responsibility on
Speaker:to provide a safe space for people around us to talk. So
Speaker:we need to listen. And that was one of the biggest things I
Speaker:took away from my time at Samaritans was learning to listen. Sounds
Speaker:easy, it's not. You know, a lot of people will listen to respond. You'll
Speaker:be talking to me and I'm already thinking what I'm going to say back. Especially blokes. Especially
Speaker:blokes. And blokes always want to fix it. So you turn up
Speaker:to me and you go, oh mate, I'm struggling, I've had a bad day at work. Try this Dan, try
Speaker:this, try that. You don't actually want to hear that. You just want to offload it.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, you're not actually looking for a solution. And
Speaker:learning that is a big thing. It's a big thing, providing that safe
Speaker:space. And hopefully that's what the podcast has done, is
Speaker:that people have invested into listening into it and notice
Speaker:that there's that safe space there and people are coming forward. So
Speaker:yeah, it's a whole circle of events that needs
Speaker:to happen in order to improve things. But yeah, I've had some
Speaker:incredible responses, some great messages of
Speaker:support and people confiding that it's made a difference
Speaker:I mean it's amazing achievement like you know
Speaker:like say 56 guests and like the majority of those guys
Speaker:are wanting to come on and a lot of these guys are names
Speaker:to some extent in the industry and being like I want to
Speaker:bear all about my experiences of
Speaker:having issues with my mental health. And it
Speaker:sounds like it's doing an incredible job of raising
Speaker:awareness, but also there's that thing of the
Speaker:goal of just getting people to talk about
Speaker:it. Great branding, obviously, like the talking tradesman, but
Speaker:just being able to offload your thoughts is
Speaker:like the first, I guess it's almost like alcoholics and I know so that
Speaker:the first thing is to admit you're
Speaker:an alcoholic in some respect. The first thing to do with mental health
Speaker:Absolutely. The first thing to do is to admit that you have it. Everyone's
Speaker:got it. I've got it. You've got it. You've got it. We've all got it. Everyone's
Speaker:got it. Nobody's immune to mental health. Keelan will have terrible mental health
Speaker:Honestly, I feel so bad for Keelan. I'm
Speaker:surprised Keelan doesn't just go home and cry every single night
Speaker:I feel bad every day. I feel like, oh man, I proper took
Speaker:the piss out of Keelan today. But he just laughs it
Speaker:off. But I guarantee you, he'll be suffering inside.
Speaker:Do you know what, like I said, it's so important to, just for
Speaker:people to recognize they have it. That doesn't mean it's gotta be bad. Like
Speaker:you could turn around, yes, I've got mental, I've got mental, I'll sit here now, I've
Speaker:got mental health at the moment, it's good. Things are
Speaker:good, it's good, I'm feeling good, life's good, few stresses
Speaker:here and there, who hasn't? But there's nothing that's pushing me
Speaker:over any edges or limits right now. But that can
Speaker:change. It can
Speaker:change to anybody. And quite often it's
Speaker:the unexpected things. The phone call you weren't expecting, those
Speaker:tragic phone calls that people get. How
Speaker:Of course it does. What about, so if
Speaker:we take this back to construction brands, so
Speaker:for the individual, Like
Speaker:let's say you're an individual trades person, you're not working for somebody, you're doing your
Speaker:own thing. What they can do is the first thing they can do is talk about it, admit it
Speaker:and talk about it. You know, within
Speaker:their network, within their safe space or something. I'm sure
Speaker:there are places that they can go like Samaritans to open up
Speaker:to people. What about like brands and
Speaker:you know, tier one contractors, you know, these guys who are, you know, people who
Speaker:are heavily involved with with trades people. Are there things
Speaker:that you recommend that would be like a an
Speaker:actionable thing that they could do to help support the
Speaker:trades people's mental health, the trades people that are specifically under
Speaker:their wing. There's certain things that you can kind of put in place or
Speaker:companies that you can get involved. I'm thinking like
Speaker:welfare or checks or having specialists that
Speaker:work within the actual business to Like
Speaker:Yeah, do you know what, Dan, this is one of the potential issues in
Speaker:construction at the moment is that there isn't a lot of that. You'll
Speaker:go to other industries and they'll have things appointed like mental health
Speaker:first aiders. You'll have, and these are some of
Speaker:the things construction's lacking, certainly with the high proportion of
Speaker:self-employed. We haven't got HR departments, we haven't really
Speaker:got people looking over our shoulder. I could work 120 hours
Speaker:this week, nobody's checking on me. Nobody's
Speaker:tapping me on the shoulder going, Russ, calm it. You know, you've done too
Speaker:much or we're going to enforce holiday on you now because you've done too many hours. That's
Speaker:where construction's lacking, in my opinion. So in
Speaker:terms of change, then yeah, thoughts about things
Speaker:like, you know, your mental health first aiders
Speaker:appointing people in position where people know it's safe to
Speaker:go and talk if they're struggling. The
Speaker:whole, there's such a huge issue, Dan, to be honest, and
Speaker:that's why the stats are there while they are. If there was an easy answer, I'd
Speaker:hope it would already be in action and that somebody would be taking
Speaker:that to address it. It's more of a cultural problem,
Speaker:You know, it's like you can, although it's really, really good
Speaker:for these brands and for the, you know, the tier one contractors or whatever to
Speaker:put in stuff in place. And it's really
Speaker:valiant for you to do that. But it's the problems are coming
Speaker:from the industry, not necessarily the job or
Speaker:People do follow though. So if the brands were to
Speaker:get behind the message, get behind the push for support, pick
Speaker:up the baton that a few of us are waving now. And
Speaker:one of the things I am very conscious of is there are a few of us out there that
Speaker:are raising awareness, but awareness isn't necessarily action for
Speaker:change. So it's one thing talking about it and I
Speaker:think in general mental health is now talked about more than ever. There's
Speaker:just not action to back it up. So maybe it's
Speaker:just coming, it's a slow progress for change. But
Speaker:if brands were to get on that message as well, support it, promote it,
Speaker:talk about the normality of it, then it can only
Speaker:go towards positive change. I don't think any negativity can come
Speaker:from that. I mean, talking about marketing, this is a
Speaker:marketing podcast. I would say that supporting mental health
Speaker:is a strong marketing position. You can't look bad supporting
Speaker:It's the strategy that a lot of brands are taking on,
Speaker:It's like doing charitable work. Everybody wins in
Speaker:that, and that's why charities are successful, because
Speaker:charities are doing something good. The brand's doing something good by supporting a
Speaker:charity. Everybody wins from that. And if
Speaker:that brand didn't get involved with the charity, they'd be worse off. Both parties
Speaker:That's exactly what brands in construction can do, because you're also
Speaker:then going to build that relationship between the brand and the person using
Speaker:whatever the product or whatever the service or whatever it might be
Speaker:is. Because once people in the trades, I think there's an
Speaker:overwhelming feeling, certainly from the self-employed demographic, that
Speaker:nobody really cares about us. We're kind of left out on
Speaker:our own to do our own thing and there's nobody really watching. So
Speaker:it goes a long way when you do get the odd brand that sort
Speaker:of starts supporting mental health within the trades or supporting trades
Speaker:people, then you get that sort of In
Speaker:life, everyone's looking for their tribe. And if you get a brand that
Speaker:starts to create its own tribe, there's a few good examples out
Speaker:there of brands that have started to do that and look after tradespeople, bring
Speaker:them in, create a family. I'm not allowed to mention brands. Yeah, please do.
Speaker:CT1, great example, probably the biggest known one
Speaker:out there. But that's what they've done. pull together your
Speaker:content creators and from the outside looking in, and I've
Speaker:got no affiliation with CT1 currently, I've
Speaker:got no affiliation but from me looking in I look at them and I think they
Speaker:look like a family, they look like they're having a great time, it looks
Speaker:like there's support there. If more brands
Speaker:were to get on, there's a few in my industry, in the painting and decorating industry,
Speaker:that are starting to do similar things. There's a brand called Arrowworthy, the
Speaker:painting and decorating show, they had a lot of their own ambassadors around the stand. You
Speaker:hear about the things, they're taking them out for meals, they're putting them in hotels. You
Speaker:know, and it's a trade-off. They're not doing it because there's no upside to
Speaker:them. Of course, there's an upside to them. But if brands were to
Speaker:get behind supporting the people, the men on the ground, or the women
Speaker:on the ground, the people on the ground, then to me, there's
Speaker:only a win there. And utilizing things like
Speaker:we were discussing before, utilizing podcasts for
Speaker:both, for the brand to deliver their
Speaker:key ethics if you like behind the brand and
Speaker:for the content creators that are working with the brand to open
Speaker:up a little bit more about the person behind the
Speaker:Yeah yeah do you know what there's so many so many avenues you
Speaker:could go down like I was just thinking about that like the CT1 thing
Speaker:or other brands that have got this kind of like, like I say, like a
Speaker:lot of them will have it. The brands that we work with will often have
Speaker:this kind of like group of people that are like, they're our guys. These
Speaker:are our like mates in the industry that promote our
Speaker:product, whether we pay them or not. You know,
Speaker:what if you could do like little gatherings where you get together and actually
Speaker:just go, do you know what, I'm just going to support you. like here's we're going to do a day of
Speaker:fun and it's going to be like a little talk or there's going to be something like someone that comes along
Speaker:who's like a professional in psychology or
Speaker:and something that can that can benefit your mental health and we can have some takeaways and
Speaker:what we'd love for you to do is share those takeaways with your
Speaker:Here's a day it's not going to cost the brand a lot of money obviously everything costs
Speaker:money But let's go and do like a mental healthy kind
Speaker:of day where we can all learn some stuff that we didn't know before. And
Speaker:do us a favor, share that knowledge. So we can almost
Speaker:build a campaign out of this. It's not just a brand going, hey, we sponsored this
Speaker:That's kind of almost my business model. with what I'm trying
Speaker:to do with the podcast is exactly that. There's
Speaker:no gatekeeping, just for anyone that might be listening, you don't
Speaker:have to have a big following to come on my podcast. I've sat down with many
Speaker:people, I've got one booked in in two weeks time, zero online presence
Speaker:whatsoever. Following is not a criteria. However,
Speaker:I have also sat down with a lot of content creators. I
Speaker:think generally, because they're just more comfortable being in this kind of environment. You
Speaker:find them, they're in your network. Yeah, exactly. But
Speaker:the likes of doing that, I mean, today's episode, Danny Madden, fantastic bloke.
Speaker:And the things that we talked about will now go out to
Speaker:his audience. So he is now doing his part. And
Speaker:I've had that through quite a lot of content creators I've spoke to across
Speaker:the time that I've been doing it. And yeah, that is
Speaker:a way to make positive change is for people to get involved, step
Speaker:up and just be honest. That's all it is. It's
Speaker:just being honest and authentic about how you
Speaker:are dealing with life and it doesn't have to be negative. You don't have to sit there with a
Speaker:violin out. It can be completely the opposite. It can be a success
Speaker:story. I'm thriving and this is how. This is
Speaker:how I deal with the pressures. This is how I deal with that. That's
Speaker:the knowledge we need to pass on. It frightens
Speaker:me, to be honest, that from a school age, there's no concept,
Speaker:there's no talks about, you know, kids aren't
Speaker:educated in psychology, they're not really educated about mental health, they're
Speaker:not told what to look out for. It's
Speaker:Do you know what? I think
Speaker:a lot of it is to do with society and culture and stuff like that. I remember my
Speaker:daughter, she's seven now, but when she was in nursery, she
Speaker:just like went, like there was a period where she just went really insular
Speaker:and didn't want to speak to anybody. And it was so sad. You see her like at
Speaker:the table, like when you go and pick, you know, like when you pick kids up at the nursery, sometimes
Speaker:you can kind of like peek through the window and you can see them all playing. She'd
Speaker:just be sitting there and just looking super sad. You're like, fuck, like
Speaker:what's happening? Like, you know, there's stuff going
Speaker:on that you think, I don't remember ever being sad as a kid, do you know what
Speaker:I mean? And she's all through it now, I think it's
Speaker:just like a phase and we supported her through that and we obviously spoke to the guys
Speaker:there. It's
Speaker:a problem that's only going to get worse. It's what I'm seeing in
Speaker:the next generations and stuff. I don't know what it's down
Speaker:I don't know, mate. I'm kind of semi-hopeful
Speaker:that the younger generations are getting a little... I look at my
Speaker:own kids and they're a lot more aware of
Speaker:things, you know, like the typical, the anxiety, the depression than
Speaker:I ever was. It can go the other way, my daughter
Speaker:is 11 and she a few years ago
Speaker:came home and talked to me about how there were a couple of kids in her
Speaker:class that only came to school a couple of days a week because they suffer
Speaker:with anxiety and she was informed by the
Speaker:school why that was and all that. You
Speaker:have got to tread carefully because if you over-educate
Speaker:or if you educate in the wrong way, kids can
Speaker:kind of fixate on it. And there's a level of me which
Speaker:goes, you know what, kids shouldn't have to worry about that. They shouldn't have
Speaker:to be worried about mental health conditions. But
Speaker:there's definitely an age, maybe it's later down the line, where
Speaker:there needs to be a knowledge and education. Because like you
Speaker:said with your experience, if you were possibly aware of
Speaker:that, you might have been able to identify it more easily. I
Speaker:think potentially it's with mental health, there's
Speaker:a generational thing where we're a little bit more at risk because
Speaker:we come from that, don't talk, don't cry.
Speaker:the man up generation as it were. I'm not sure whether that's ended
Speaker:now, but we're still all out there, you know what I
Speaker:mean? There's still a whole bunch of blokes that are
Speaker:30, 40, 50 that grew up in the society that we
Speaker:did, pre-social media, pre-phones, pre-TikTok basically,
Speaker:which a lot of kids are picking up a lot of information on now. Yeah,
Speaker:I don't know, mate. I'm hopeful maybe it will get better
Speaker:in terms of awareness, but
Speaker:there's certainly like... a key demographic
Speaker:I think one of the beautiful, one of the interesting things about this movement,
Speaker:I've always been very open to stuff like this anyway. I've
Speaker:never really been the kind of person of just like, man up
Speaker:or whatever. Obviously, you're well allowed
Speaker:to be masculine and there are ways of still being strong and brave while
Speaker:also being open and honest about your feelings
Speaker:and stuff like that. Again,
Speaker:there's a spectrum on that. You're not just like a snowflake or the man up
Speaker:here. There's something in between those. Not
Speaker:that they're particularly good terms to use, but I
Speaker:think that the awareness is great because at that moment when I
Speaker:saw my daughter and I could see something was going on, even
Speaker:at that young age, I've got the awareness to go, oh, there's some
Speaker:tools here that I can use. There's places that I can go to
Speaker:figure out what's going on. I know who to speak to to get
Speaker:some advice or whatever. Whereas if there wasn't that mental health
Speaker:awareness out, I'd have just gone,
Speaker:who knows? Who knows? You know, suck it up or
Speaker:whatever. You know what I mean? Like, you have to just go in and deal with it. Whereas I
Speaker:think, you know, there was perhaps a situation where perhaps some of the kids weren't
Speaker:playing with my daughter and she was feeling like, are
Speaker:sad about that, whereas actually if we gave her some tools
Speaker:to go, why don't you go and ask them? And here's some
Speaker:ways that you can ask them. And eventually she did, and it got better. And we encouraged
Speaker:the teachers to kind of push her in that direction. And now she's like,
Speaker:That's good parenting, mate. And life, that's
Speaker:what it does. It throws these obstacles at us. And the growth is
Speaker:all about the obstacles. It's about learning how to overcome things.
Speaker:So, you know, that was an obstacle. You parented well. She's
Speaker:grown from that experience because she's now got those tools. She'll have kept those
Speaker:tools moving forwards. And I think that's a good analogy,
Speaker:really, is a lot of us, me personally, went through a lot of my
Speaker:life with no tools. Because I didn't know I needed them. They
Speaker:didn't exist. You were good up until that point. Exactly. Yeah, it's like I
Speaker:never required the tool. But then I didn't even know
Speaker:the tools existed. So when I did need them, it
Speaker:wasn't a case of thinking, oh, well, I'll just reach for that, because
Speaker:I now need that. It was completely oblivious. So
Speaker:not knowing that a saw existed, I didn't know how you cut wood.
Speaker:I'm throwing loads of analogies out at you, but you see where I'm getting
Speaker:at. When you don't know that something's there, you can't
Speaker:prepare for it. And that's all it is, is just develop
Speaker:your tools, develop your coping mechanisms, so as and when
Speaker:something happens, because it will. Life is
Speaker:not easy. It's those unexpected things that
Speaker:will take you by surprise. Something will come at you at some point in your life. And
Speaker:it's just knowing where the tools are if you need them. You
Speaker:can keep them in a cupboard, that's fine. don't have to have them out on the table all day,
Speaker:Absolutely. What an amazing resource. The Talking Tradesman, go and
Speaker:please, I encourage everybody to go check that out, especially in the trades,
Speaker:but even if you're not, you know, who cares? It's
Speaker:an entertaining watch. I watched a good chunk of Danny
Speaker:Madden's and it's really interesting. And we talked kind
Speaker:of off air about this. We're going to move on at some stage, but about
Speaker:the fact that on social media you have this presence and
Speaker:it's natural, there's nothing... You
Speaker:naturally post the stuff that is the most relevant to
Speaker:your audience and the most interesting and what you think is going to generate the
Speaker:most interest
Speaker:based on your goals of what social media is to you. So
Speaker:if your goal is to attract a
Speaker:wider audience with positivity, obviously you're going to post positive stuff. You're
Speaker:probably not going to post the negative stuff. So you can see these people on
Speaker:And but actually, as you mentioned, there's a
Speaker:there's a there's a different side to everybody. And podcasts
Speaker:are a great opportunity to sort of be authentic and bring
Speaker:that out. And I love that it was really interesting to
Speaker:hear that side, because it's, you know, when you get on social media, when you put the camera on,
Speaker:for the most part, even if you you think you're being authentic, you're not you're
Speaker:pointing a camera at yourself, there's there's an element of inauthenticity within
Speaker:that, but you might be pretty authentic, you know. Podcasts are
Speaker:Exactly, yeah. It's a weird one, mate, because I think you can be authentic at
Speaker:showing your high points. Yes. There's no inauthenticity. You're
Speaker:very authentic in the moment. You're just not showing everything. That
Speaker:doesn't mean you're not authentic. No. It just means that, you know, there's a
Speaker:curtain. You've got what's in front of the curtain, what's behind the curtain. It's still
Speaker:you. Yes. But there's a part that you keep private. And everyone's entitled
Speaker:to that, you know. There's certain things I would never put out. And everyone's
Speaker:going to have those things behind the curtain. But
Speaker:there's definitely some value, I think, to giving people a little peek,
Speaker:you know, just the front of the show stuff.
Speaker:It's like showing the warehouse, you know what I mean? It's opening
Speaker:the doors up a little bit to go, yeah, there's the shop front. Here's
Speaker:the warehouse where all the work's done. Do you know what I mean? This is what, and
Speaker:that's one of the things from the content creators side
Speaker:that I've experienced through my podcast. is
Speaker:I think it's been really beneficial to a few of the people that have come on to
Speaker:show that warehouse, show the motivations, you
Speaker:know. I can use a few examples. I mean, I sat
Speaker:down with Alex Berman, Ariat Carpentry, and he
Speaker:walked out of my studio and I looked at him differently. because he
Speaker:sat there and he talked about his motivations, why he's doing everything
Speaker:he's doing in terms of working with all the brands he's working with, what
Speaker:he's trying to achieve and why he's trying to achieve it. And, you
Speaker:know, that's Alex's story to tell, so I won't go into that. You
Speaker:can tune into my podcast and find out. Please do. But it
Speaker:really, to me, him doing that adds more value
Speaker:to him as a content creator because it offers up the
Speaker:It kind of leads me on to kind of how
Speaker:brands, I guess, and content creators can utilize podcasts
Speaker:as a format. Because I think it's still one that's not, it's
Speaker:surprising because a lot of people say that our podcast is so saturated. I'm
Speaker:Yeah. Got a good podcast. There's a difference. There's
Speaker:a big difference there. And, you know, we talk
Speaker:about this a lot. And, you know, we produce podcasts for construction
Speaker:brands as well. And there's
Speaker:nuances and it kind of depends on your goals and
Speaker:what you want to achieve with a podcast, but massively underutilized
Speaker:piece of marketing material or a marketing channel, sorry,
Speaker:that can can do multiple things. So, you
Speaker:know, for example, a brand who
Speaker:is looking to appeal more to problems
Speaker:like mental health, you know, they have a format, they
Speaker:have a channel, a platform, they could get someone like you, yourself, who've
Speaker:got a good following, you've already got a big audience to come on and
Speaker:talk about a particular a problem or
Speaker:situation or a topic, you bring your audience with
Speaker:you and you're well-versed to talk about that
Speaker:particular problem that's on the marketing strategy. As part of
Speaker:the marketing strategy, we want to be addressing a few issues. That's
Speaker:a huge platform. Imagine just trying to figure out how to do
Speaker:that without a podcast. There's obviously ways and means about it.
Speaker:I mean I think personally it would be a really good marketing strategy
Speaker:for more brands to open up a little themselves. What
Speaker:I mean by that is you talk, you want to make a
Speaker:connection between your brand and your customer, your customer base. A
Speaker:lot of brands you will see the glossy sign or the
Speaker:logo and that when you think of a brand you think of the logo. Logos
Speaker:are great you know but If you were to experience maybe
Speaker:a few more CEOs, a few more managing directors that
Speaker:came on podcasts, they can talk about their brand, but
Speaker:they can also talk about how they've established the brand and their own personal
Speaker:trials and tribulations. Give that human connection that
Speaker:then when people think about said brand, they're going to think about,
Speaker:Oh, actually I heard about their origin story. I heard about how that actually started
Speaker:in a great example, my Gymshark. Everybody knows
Speaker:Ben Francis started Gymshark in his garage, you know
Speaker:what I mean, at his mum and dad's house. There's that personal connection
Speaker:to Gymshark, I think. One of their strong marketing points is
Speaker:that, is that people know where it started and where it's
Speaker:gone. I think a lot of well-established brands, they
Speaker:don't have that personal origin story behind them.
Speaker:And I think it would be very beneficial. Absolutely.
Speaker:Connect with your audience, connect with your customer base, and
Speaker:podcasts are a brilliant way to do that. And you're quite right.
Speaker:I mean, people might think the podcast market's saturated, but how
Speaker:many proper podcasts are out there? There are, this
Speaker:is not discrediting anybody that does a podcast. There
Speaker:are different levels of podcasting, just as there are DIY and professional trades
Speaker:people. There are DIY podcasts, you
Speaker:know, and I would say that I've only maybe just moved
Speaker:out of that by taking on the space that I've took on. But when
Speaker:you're talking about remote podcasts over Zoom, things like that, it doesn't,
Speaker:It's not the same as this. This is a professional podcast studio
Speaker:with a professional setup and professional equipment and a producer. Big
Speaker:up Key with your mental health. You
Speaker:No, and the real thing about brands can afford stuff
Speaker:like this. They can afford to make it jazzy. Not all brands are loaded of
Speaker:course. you
Speaker:know, there are situations where you can produce stuff
Speaker:like this and afford to be able to get guests on and do this on a
Speaker:regular basis and open up that
Speaker:communication with your audience. And
Speaker:what I think a lot of brands are scared about is
Speaker:there's almost like, there's two forms
Speaker:of podcasts that kind of come up, which is we do, Podcast,
Speaker:a lot of brands, they wanna talk about what they do. No one gives a shit about
Speaker:what you do, I'm afraid. Most of the time, you
Speaker:get a company that wants to talk about all the amazing stuff that they're doing within, let's
Speaker:take an engineering firm that does M&E construction for
Speaker:whatever. If they just talk about themselves the whole
Speaker:time and they get guests on and stuff like that, there is a, There
Speaker:is some benefit to that from a marketing point of view, but
Speaker:it's not going to get great numbers and it's not going to get a lot of interest. It
Speaker:is very much like you are really targeting that towards your
Speaker:customers, target audience and stuff like that. You just kind of, I always call it wheelie
Speaker:waving. You're just showing how clever you are. Not a lot of
Speaker:people are going to have a lot of interest in that, but it might work. And
Speaker:you have to sort of gauge. um you
Speaker:know what you want to achieve from that and there's another sort of form of
Speaker:podcast which is like a general interest podcast where let's say you're a
Speaker:construction brand um and you want to create a podcast that
Speaker:is related to the the general interest of
Speaker:your target audience so trades people Trade Legends
Speaker:is a really good example of that or something like where really,
Speaker:that's just an interesting podcast if I'm in the industry or
Speaker:not. I'm not a trades person but I still love Trade Legends for
Speaker:listening to it. So what
Speaker:you're doing there is you're not really telling anybody, like Unilite
Speaker:aren't telling everybody how amazing they are or
Speaker:whatever. They might put a sponsored ad in there or something like that. They
Speaker:might sort of give it a mention but for the most part, They're creating content
Speaker:that is relatable and entertaining for their target
Speaker:audience, much broader target audience, their customer. But
Speaker:they're not shoving the product down your throat. But you can see their branding everywhere. You
Speaker:It's perfect, it's subliminal. But what I feel
Speaker:it does is like the Trade Legends podcast, shout out to the guys there, I've been
Speaker:on it myself. Great set up, great lads. It
Speaker:creates that value, so they're giving you something for free. It
Speaker:might not be a physical item, they're giving you entertainment for an hour.
Speaker:I've given you that. And what that does then to
Speaker:the customer, it provides that feeling of worth, that
Speaker:feeling of I'm part of this. And then you kind of think, well, hold
Speaker:on, they've given me something, so do you know what, if I need a new sight light, I'm gonna check them out
Speaker:first. Because I like them. And that likeable, like
Speaker:Al, very likeable person. So
Speaker:there's that personal connection again though. I feel like
Speaker:I know him because of his podcast. How many
Speaker:other brands can you say that about? Absolutely. Do you even know who
Speaker:the owner of most brands are? No. Absolutely not.
Speaker:But there's that personal connection that they've tapped into their audience perfectly.
Speaker:Because like you say they've brought on their target demographic, they've
Speaker:given value to, it's all about giving to
Speaker:receive. Absolutely. So they've given the listener entertainment for an
Speaker:hour, And they've also given the people, the guests exposure, which
Speaker:can then lead to opportunities for them as content creators, brand
Speaker:deals, ambassadors, recognition, custom base. There's
Speaker:so many positives. One of
Speaker:the expressions I love is a rising tide raises all boats.
Speaker:And it's leaning into that. It's sometimes if you want something,
Speaker:you first got to give. You've got to give out, you've got
Speaker:to provide something for your customers. and not expect anything
Speaker:back. And then actually you'll get stuff back. It's
Speaker:a little bit of a hypocrisy really in saying that, that you're doing
Speaker:it, you're giving something without expecting anything, but really the long-term goal
Speaker:is you are expecting something, but that's all of us. We're all
Speaker:trying to achieve something. You're trying to achieve something with this podcast. I'm
Speaker:trying to achieve something with mine. The reality is that, but
Speaker:if you're giving out value, I think it's a, It's
Speaker:We all know it's not entirely selfless, you know what I mean? Of course not.
Speaker:We can all see through that, and that's not a bad thing. I think this is one of those things
Speaker:that, like, we all know that you're doing this because, you
Speaker:know, you want to get something from it, whatever that is. Everyone does
Speaker:something to get something. Yeah. But you
Speaker:imagine the alternative of if Trade Legends was actually just
Speaker:a Unilite podcast, for instance, and just every single episode
Speaker:they talked about Unilite products. Yeah. Imagine how
Speaker:many people die after three episodes. Love the Unilike products. They're great.
Speaker:I don't need to subscribe to their podcast. You know what I mean? Yeah. So
Speaker:it's really, really clever. And what I find a
Speaker:lot of brands will do. So you've got Owl. You've got Mark Tiff,
Speaker:who are kind of like the host of the podcast. Entertaining guys.
Speaker:Got a lot of stories. Relatable. Some
Speaker:brands will go like, well, We're just a
Speaker:load of sales guys. None of us are on the tools in
Speaker:here. We haven't got someone
Speaker:who could be the host of, let's say, a podcast or something like that. So
Speaker:they'll be put off by the idea of that. What they could probably do is talk about the product.
Speaker:But again, there's a market to that. And there
Speaker:are some situations where that would be OK. But
Speaker:again, it's not going to be that successful on
Speaker:Spotify and YouTube and stuff like that. push that by
Speaker:email to your target audience of a few people that are
Speaker:big buyers of those things, whatever. So
Speaker:brands who want to be in on the podcasts, but
Speaker:they perhaps don't have the resource, a lot of them don't realize that
Speaker:you can just slap your name on someone else's podcast, like
Speaker:100%. Like a really, really good example is, let's say,
Speaker:Let's say Keelan, my guy, Keelan, had a podcast
Speaker:that was specific to, I
Speaker:don't know, let's say it was a copy of Trade Legends, perhaps not
Speaker:a copy, but it's a topical podcast around the construction industry and
Speaker:particular trades. My guys got a
Speaker:decent following on that platform and all that kind of
Speaker:stuff. His target
Speaker:market is absolutely perfect for Milwaukee,
Speaker:let's say. Most of those guys are probably going to be interested in a Milwaukee product
Speaker:of some description. So Milwaukee, rather than creating
Speaker:their own podcast, they just slap their name on Keelan's podcast. They
Speaker:don't shove it down people's throats. They go, hey, listen, let me support your podcast. We
Speaker:are going to put some branding knocking about. Would you mind if we have an ad or
Speaker:two? and perhaps
Speaker:it gets a mention, but we're not going to talk about Milwaukee, we're not going to talk about the products, we're
Speaker:not going to change the format at all. You can keep your podcast,
Speaker:but we want to support it and give you a shit load of money. But
Speaker:eventually people will start to associate your podcast with
Speaker:All you gotta do is go, do us a favor. We'll give you some money,
Speaker:you can do up the set and stuff like that. That's absolutely mental.
Speaker:At the minute, so like I say, we've just opened our new studio, as
Speaker:it were. Which looks great, by the way. Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker:That came to fruition a couple of weeks ago. It's been mad since then, so I haven't actually spent
Speaker:much time in it because I've been at trade shows and things. But we
Speaker:are, as of mid-December, we're looking for a new headline sponsor for
Speaker:exactly that. And if someone wants to reach out. But
Speaker:that opportunity is there. So I have deliberately built
Speaker:the studio so it is not overly branded. Somebody else
Speaker:can bring their branding in and do exactly what you just said, which
Speaker:would be to provide background product placement
Speaker:or banners or whatever it might be. Associate yourself with what's
Speaker:already built, the product is there. And you're gonna do that, you're
Speaker:gonna do your marketing by association. It's the Uniline model
Speaker:Well you've already built it, you've done it. This is what
Speaker:I love about this kind of thing is, who's
Speaker:your target audience? Trades people for the most part. You
Speaker:might get some miscellaneous people, but just for the nature of the branding and
Speaker:stuff like that, you've got people in the trade or generally people in the construction industry.
Speaker:But let's say for instance, I'm guessing that
Speaker:for the most part your audience is trades people. Yeah, 90%, 99%. So
Speaker:if you've got, if you're a brand that only
Speaker:really sells to, or their primary
Speaker:customer is trades people, what you've
Speaker:got there is an audience. Let's say you get, I don't know, I'm
Speaker:not going to guess numbers, I'm just going to make up numbers. Let's say you get 10,000 listens an
Speaker:episode. So that's 10,000 of your target audience
Speaker:tuning in every single day to a person that they trust. Imagine if
Speaker:you put a little bit of an ad in there. There's
Speaker:such and such, we're produced or sponsored by this
Speaker:product. You don't have to shove it
Speaker:down people's throats. That's, you know, what
Speaker:a marketing opportunity that would be. And all you're doing is supporting it.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, as well, with podcasts, and
Speaker:I use mine, for example, yours will be the same. So not
Speaker:only have you got the podcast and the inserted ad, so you've got your
Speaker:listener download figures, but then you've got each podcast, like mine,
Speaker:will have social media channels. So we're present and active on
Speaker:every social media channel where we put out our clips, our shorts, and
Speaker:things like that. So all of those can
Speaker:then be marketed or targeted to if you've got something in the background, it's
Speaker:subliminal. So not only could you have 10,000 downloads,
Speaker:but it's quite possible that you're then gonna have hundreds
Speaker:of thousands of views on clips and shorts that
Speaker:again, you know, you can utilize all of that
Speaker:with it. Like to me, podcasts are an untapped goldmine as
Speaker:well as that. You look at traditional marketing methods, so radio
Speaker:ads, TV ads back in the day, and things like
Speaker:that. What's gonna happen with those?
Speaker:Who's listening to the radio at 10 a.m.? They might hear it. With
Speaker:a podcast, it's selective. So somebody's gonna listen to it when
Speaker:they have time, when they wanna watch it. Same with social media shorts, YouTube
Speaker:shorts. They're gonna watch it when they wanna watch it. It's permanently there. And
Speaker:with a podcast, if it does well, generally
Speaker:speaking, because I don't know about you, I listen to loads of podcasts. When
Speaker:I come across a new one, I'll listen to an episode that will catch my
Speaker:attention, and then I'll binge the back catalogue. So
Speaker:if you were to support a podcast through terms
Speaker:of advertising and things like that, you're going to have, you
Speaker:know, the value keeps accumulating. Your ad hasn't
Speaker:been out there and then it's done. It's out there forever. And
Speaker:then when people binge backwards, as they always do, you're getting
Speaker:the exposure potentially years down the line from an ad that you
Speaker:That's mad, isn't it? You can't get it on the radio. No, you can't. It's like
Speaker:it's a one-off thing. You're right, Key. Just
Speaker:on that piece. That's all right, it's only my camera, he gives
Speaker:a shit. It's
Speaker:massive. The opportunities are absolutely huge. If you're interested
Speaker:in sponsoring a podcast whose primary target audience
Speaker:is construction, People who work in construction,
Speaker:Good opportunity. The thing is, you said it's a saturated market
Speaker:Absolutely not. There's maybe three, four that are out
Speaker:You think about like my my podcast so niche is because my because
Speaker:it's an interesting one because my podcast is is related to marketers and
Speaker:construction. So much more niche than than just
Speaker:general trades people and stuff. And
Speaker:if you think like, I don't know, I don't know the
Speaker:stats on on, I don't get huge numbers on online because
Speaker:it is niche. But I was really surprised. The YouTube does incredibly
Speaker:well, partly down to the guests that I get on. But even
Speaker:guests that are relatively unknown, relatively decent numbers. And
Speaker:you just sort of think, imagine getting in a room with, let's
Speaker:say, 500 people. You get a room with 500 people, and you get
Speaker:to talk about your product. And they're actively listening. You can't skip
Speaker:an ad. It's difficult to skip an
Speaker:ad on, what's his name, on Spotify,
Speaker:for instance. um yeah there's there's
Speaker:so many opportunities to do that yeah there's not a lot of brands that want to sponsor mine
Speaker:unfortunately there's not there's not a lot of companies that who their target market is
Speaker:marketers in construction uh it might be like a hub
Speaker:spot or something like that you know personally you say that though i
Speaker:believe that brand awareness like why not yeah you know brand awareness just
Speaker:talk about your product because it's got limited legs.
Speaker:Two, three episodes, you're done. Nobody wants to hear that on repeat. To
Speaker:me as well, like me personally, I come from the decorating industry and
Speaker:when I've discussed doing my podcast with people and I've had people
Speaker:want to come on and talk about tools and I've kind of pushed it away because
Speaker:for the same thing, I think I'm now 56 episodes in, whatever
Speaker:it might be. Would you want to listen to somebody talk
Speaker:about painting walls 56 times? The great thing
Speaker:to me, I've got a huge interest in people, the reason being everyone's different, everyone's
Speaker:got their own story. So like you just said, you don't have to talk about
Speaker:your brand and your item, you can piggyback on the back of all
Speaker:that interest. by associating yourself
Speaker:with, and you could drop in the odd little thing here and there, you get a new product
Speaker:launch, okay, we'll put a new ad in about that product. And
Speaker:then you've got that targeted demographic, you've got 60 seconds of
Speaker:an ad inserted mid-flow into a podcast, like you just said,
Speaker:not many people skip on, because generally speaking, I know what I do
Speaker:when I listen to a podcast, which is put it on my headphones, put it in my pocket. It's
Speaker:more hassle to get my phone out, unlock it, and skip it than just go, you
Speaker:know what, 60 seconds. So I think podcasts
Speaker:are hugely currently underutilized media form for
Speaker:And what's really cool, I want to go on to my last topic, and this is
Speaker:kind of like our business model for a new project that
Speaker:we've got coming up. Everyone knows, well, I'll explain what, you
Speaker:know, a podcast network is essentially, this is
Speaker:kind of like a gross plug for Dissident, but I've started so I'm
Speaker:going to finish it. So a podcast network is,
Speaker:you know, a solution where a brand can go to a
Speaker:company like Dissident and they will create
Speaker:the podcast, bring in the talent, do all the marketing. They basically do everything for
Speaker:them. That's kind of what Dissident can do. It's something that we've been
Speaker:playing around with. whether that network hosts
Speaker:and looks after multiple different shows for
Speaker:different brands and stuff like that. So one of the things
Speaker:that we came across, we actually trialed this. It
Speaker:didn't go ahead, unfortunately. I won't go into the details of it, but with someone who
Speaker:had like four, I think it was like five million followers on Instagram,
Speaker:massive, huge local celebrity. It
Speaker:didn't work out in the end because of the nature of how they wanted to do it. It wasn't like
Speaker:the deal didn't go sour. It's just they had very specific requirements, which meant
Speaker:But what brands can do, and this is
Speaker:something I would love to organize, is
Speaker:let's say you've got someone who's got a
Speaker:load of clout on social media. They're a big name in
Speaker:a particular field. Let's say it's a DIY
Speaker:or someone in construction who's got a really, really good, cool following.
Speaker:They're a really interesting person. You think they'd be good for a podcast, but
Speaker:they don't have one yet. What you can
Speaker:then do is you go, well, I know for a fact that if we did
Speaker:a podcast, if we figured out a podcast that would work for them on
Speaker:a specific theme, on a specific topic, and that had legs, you could keep
Speaker:it going. It would be instantly
Speaker:successful. We know it would work. You don't have to build it up. We know
Speaker:that this person will bring some eyeballs to whatever they put
Speaker:their mind to. What you can then do is
Speaker:you can just pluck a brand out and you can go, hey, listen, you can
Speaker:support this for a year for a cost. You've got to
Speaker:pay for it, obviously. And then we're the people in
Speaker:the middle that actually kind of make it happen. That is
Speaker:something that I think a lot of brands aren't considering is the fact that I
Speaker:think a lot of them think you have to build up a podcast before it's successful.
Speaker:It's actually easy, that's what we're doing, people who are relatively
Speaker:unknown until we start and we build it, but we're doing it
Speaker:of our own dime and we're doing it for our own time and for different reasons. Whereas
Speaker:actually what you can do is you can get, I
Speaker:don't know, who's got a massive following, it's
Speaker:somebody's got a massive home improvements channel whatever if
Speaker:they decided that they wanted to make a podcast what let's say Phil
Speaker:or Brad or both of them wanted to make a podcast about topical things
Speaker:related to construction they would get some eyeballs on that 100% So
Speaker:what you need to then do is, as a brand, go, hey, we'll pay for
Speaker:it, but we want our kind of branding everywhere, you know, subtle, but
Speaker:not in your face, an ad spot per episode, and we
Speaker:will pay for the whole bloody thing. And we'll
Speaker:get all the social content, we've got all that kind of stuff. That's a no-brainer. Like,
Speaker:that would be insane. Because all you do is you just go, production
Speaker:costs, whatever that is, quite expensive, but not insane
Speaker:for a brand. You pay the boys their
Speaker:rates, you just say what do you want to get per episode based on your
Speaker:amount of effort. You come to agreement on that and you
Speaker:come together and that could be incredibly successful. And a
Speaker:really good example of that was Zwift did that for, I'm pretty sure
Speaker:Zwift did it for, I'm gonna get his name wrong, is it
Speaker:Yeah, I've heard of him. Geraint Thomas. The other thing I'll
Speaker:say just while you're looking at that Dan, is that
Speaker:particularly for the construction industry, podcasts are
Speaker:huge. Because a lot of us work solitary, so
Speaker:a lot of us will either have the radio on,
Speaker:but if you listen to the same radio station for eight hours a
Speaker:day, it gets on repeat, it gets repetitive. So a hell of a lot of people
Speaker:that I know and talk to will either pop an audio book or a podcast on,
Speaker:whether it's a morning or the afternoon, split up the day. So
Speaker:people in construction listen to a lot of podcasts. That's what
Speaker:goes on. So it really is a
Speaker:way of reaching out into the community. I would argue that
Speaker:people in construction probably consume more podcasts than the average
Speaker:industry demographic. Because you guys, I sat over there,
Speaker:you're not going to listen to a podcast in the middle of the day, are you? No, no. I
Speaker:might listen to four. Yeah. Not only
Speaker:that, but like, you know, I'm in a few social groups. We
Speaker:all talk. Any good new podcasts? That
Speaker:kind of thing. Everyone's listening to them. It really is an
Speaker:Absolutely. I feel like I might have got this wrong, so I
Speaker:think I'll make a hypothetical. I'll
Speaker:tell you this with a pinch of salt, because I don't actually think this is necessarily true, or it might
Speaker:have happened, but it might have stopped now. But essentially, Strava
Speaker:wanted to do a podcast, let's say. I'm not
Speaker:saying this is fact. Strava, if you don't know, Strava's like an
Speaker:app for cyclists, and you can put
Speaker:a screen in front of you, you can go on your indoor cycling
Speaker:bike, and you can pretend to do the Tour de France, or whatever, Tour de
Speaker:France. So really, really cool app. Loads of cyclists use
Speaker:Really, really cool. Sorry, not Strava, I
Speaker:beg your pardon. Strava is where you would go running
Speaker:and stuff like that. Is it Zwift? It's
Speaker:Zwift, isn't it? This analogy is
Speaker:derailing massively. Zwift, sorry, is an app,
Speaker:I think, where you basically have your iPad, or you can hook it up
Speaker:to a TV, and it's almost like a social media
Speaker:platform where you're cycling and other people are cycling, but it's virtual.
Speaker:And you can go and do the Tour de France, some crazy things.
Speaker:It's really clever and you can do things like it can make the, depending
Speaker:on if you're going uphill, it'll make your exercise bike harder and
Speaker:stuff. Really, really clever stuff. So cyclists use it all the time in the off season
Speaker:and if it's raining or something like that. So let's say
Speaker:they want to do a podcast, but they don't want to talk about the app. That'll get pretty boring.
Speaker:And let's say, for instance, they don't have anybody internally that's
Speaker:interesting enough that they deem would be beneficial to
Speaker:have a podcast. But Garen Thomas, the
Speaker:cycling legend, is interesting. He's got loads of mates that
Speaker:are in cycling, loads of people that want to hear, if you're a cyclist, which
Speaker:is their target market, would want to
Speaker:listen to him talk about cycling. slap, just
Speaker:give that man some money and sponsor his podcast. That's all you need to do.
Speaker:And they basically just created this kind of, you know, podcast that
Speaker:produced it. I'm pretty sure he didn't have one initially until they paid for
Speaker:it. Massively successful because he's already famous. He's
Speaker:already got some clout. And your brand
Speaker:is all over it, you know, and you just, you associate then the podcast, which
Speaker:is talking about stuff that's relating to your target audience. with
Speaker:It really is. The more you're saying this, the more it's like, why
Speaker:Yeah. Oh, I think the construction industry is way too scared. I think that's the
Speaker:theme of this podcast is, and this is something we're trying to push,
Speaker:is they're slow to adapt. Construction
Speaker:They've got to break the mould though, Dan, haven't they? Everything in
Speaker:terms of like social interaction is evolving so fast. You
Speaker:know, new forms of social media, lower attention spans, all
Speaker:this lot and it's happening so quickly. So traditional forms of
Speaker:marketing need to evolve in line with that. Yes. And
Speaker:certainly like appealing to younger generations and just getting that
Speaker:reach. And how do you break the mold and become noticed
Speaker:in a world of people that are doing the same thing? you
Speaker:know, to step out into other industry demographics that are clearly
Speaker:popular within that industry. Why
Speaker:would nobody do that? If you look at the success of
Speaker:the likes of trade legends, to put myself in
Speaker:the category, and not to sound too egotistical, but in
Speaker:fact to pull it back, I have been massively
Speaker:surprised by the growth of my own podcast. Never expected
Speaker:it at all, but it proves the demand's there. The audience is
Speaker:there, hence why it's done as well as it's done in
Speaker:such a short space of time. So there's definite mileage
Speaker:for people to do it, and produce value, and give
Speaker:Do some good, absolutely, and market yourself at the same
Speaker:time, win-win. Yeah, it's
Speaker:absolutely crazy. I mean, I feel like we've got some takeaways there.
Speaker:And I'm happy
Speaker:with what we've done in terms of laying
Speaker:out the groundwork for podcasts as a marketing tool, but
Speaker:also as almost like a brand value tool as well, and to do some good. Was
Speaker:there anything that I should have asked you that you wish, you
Speaker:know, you'd want to talk about, you think, oh, I need him to ask me this question. Is there something you
Speaker:Not really, mate. I mean, obviously marketing is not my demographic. I'm
Speaker:sort of learning to swim in different waters at the moment with a few things that
Speaker:I'm doing. So I'm just taking everything in. I've taken away stuff from the
Speaker:conversation. I've taken away the whole new avenue
Speaker:It's so easy. Yeah, mate, honestly, it seems like a glaring wide
Speaker:open avenue to lean into now. No, it's
Speaker:been a pleasure, mate. I really appreciate you opening up your platform to have me
Speaker:come and sit with you because I'm not your normal, you
Speaker:know, sort of line of conversation. And
Speaker:again, with what I'm doing, trying to spread the mental health
Speaker:awareness and you know, by inviting
Speaker:me onto here, it just does a little bit more. So you've, you know,
Speaker:played your part in letting me use your platform to
Speaker:Well, I thank you very much for bringing your audience with you. Because
Speaker:it helps, doesn't it? I mean, we could do a
Speaker:whole podcast related to just
Speaker:marketing podcasts, and one of the biggest ones. And it's the
Speaker:same with networking. You go on each other's podcasts, you
Speaker:network. Because a lot of time, when you're a podcast host, no one asks you questions, do they?
Speaker:You know what I mean? Actually, whereas usually, The
Speaker:reason why you've gone on that podcast or why you created that podcast is
Speaker:because you've got a lot to say on that topic. But if you're a good podcast host,
Speaker:you don't actually say that much. You
Speaker:Yeah, it's been an evolution, mate. I'm not a big fan of listening to myself back,
Speaker:funnily enough, but I force myself to do it every few episodes
Speaker:just to lean into, am I talking too much? Am
Speaker:I butting in? Am I over-talking? And I'll look at the difference
Speaker:between episode one and episode 50. And I think it's huge. I'll
Speaker:pick up on a lot of differences, but you have to listen
Speaker:to learn. So yeah, it's a new science
Speaker:that the whole podcast world is. And this is one of the things, you
Speaker:know, talking about it being a marketable thing, it is so new
Speaker:because when I've looked into it, it's really hard to find information on how
Speaker:to do it, what to do. you know, just even setting up
Speaker:a podcast, it's not easy to find that information. But when it comes to
Speaker:marketing the podcast, how, you know, what the value is of the podcast,
Speaker:when it comes to advertising opportunities, actually finding
Speaker:information on what to charge, what's a reasonable rate, what the value is,
Speaker:it's quite difficult to come by. So it's almost, I
Speaker:would argue that we're still trailblazing, really. I mean,
Speaker:the statistic that I, so I started the podcast in January, my
Speaker:audience has steadily grown, And on the Spotify rap
Speaker:charts this week, I found out that I'm in the top 5% in
Speaker:the world of video podcasters on Spotify, which
Speaker:is insane. How has that happened? And to me, what that says
Speaker:is this is just getting started. This is so new that
Speaker:I've managed to climb in the top 5%. with
Speaker:very little knowledge or experience. So you imagine a brand
Speaker:supporting a professional setup like this with
Speaker:proper editing, proper equipment and knowledge of the industry
Speaker:behind it. I think it'd be quite easy to really jump
Speaker:Yeah, definitely. It's mad, top five, congratulations. I
Speaker:had no idea, it was insane. Podcasting is,
Speaker:without getting too nerdy for the audience, it is one of those things where you
Speaker:don't really get as much data as you'd like. It's really hard
Speaker:to combine. Social media is really good at giving you analytics and stuff like that.
Speaker:And what's interesting is it's very difficult to be able to find analytics on
Speaker:a competitor's, or not a competitor's, on a different podcast. Like,
Speaker:there's no benchmark. I find it really difficult.
Speaker:It's like, okay, well, how many views am I expected to
Speaker:get if I go to your podcast? Like, there's
Speaker:no stats there to say this has been, a lot of the time, this has been viewed X
Speaker:amount of times on these days and stuff. Whereas like on social media, you can kind of get a
Speaker:sense of like, oh, okay, like 100 likes is about the standard for a
Speaker:company that's doing this kind of thing or whatever. It's hard to get the benchmark,
Speaker:I think the problem is with podcasts, everyone looks at
Speaker:the 0.01%, don't they? They look at Joe Rogan. They look
Speaker:at, you know, Diary of a CEO. They look at the real big hitters and hear
Speaker:these big numbers coming out. But the reality is, you
Speaker:know, there's so many more below that, that
Speaker:actually, you know, the numbers haven't got to be that high to
Speaker:be, you know, pretty well recognized within the industry. So,
Speaker:yeah, it's worth gaining that perspective, but you're quite right, looking and trying
Speaker:Really difficult. You can look at your own stuff and get depressed about it, but it'd be
Speaker:nice if I could have a look at somebody else and go, oh, okay, I'm not
Speaker:To be honest with you, Dan, another good business idea would be to launch
Speaker:a podcaster's guide, just with some base facts,
Speaker:figures, and research, what to expect, when to expect it. You
Speaker:know, how long should it take you to get your first 10,000 downloads? Because
Speaker:I've looked at all this stuff, and there's such contrasting opinions
Speaker:out there. But yeah, there's a lot of information. It's
Speaker:hard to pull together the analytics as well of listening numbers.
Speaker:Because me, I publish on every platform. So
Speaker:it's a case of going into the analytics of each one, then trying to
Speaker:bring it together, then trying to work out. Yeah, there's a
Speaker:Maybe when we figure it out, Russell, we'll put together like some sort
Speaker:of course or something like a PDF that you
Speaker:can download and their proceeds will go to charity or
Speaker:something like that. I think there's legs in that. Yeah, definitely. There
Speaker:was something that I wanted to just finish off on then, but I
Speaker:got lost in what you were talking about and then kind of forgot it. But
Speaker:it probably wasn't that important, Key, was it? Probably just me.
Speaker:Just me chatting absolute shit. Russell,
Speaker:thank you so much for coming on. Absolute pleasure, mate. For everybody watching and
Speaker:listening, go check out the Talking Tradesman. I don't know why,
Speaker:I know it's Talking Tradesman, but for some reason I look at your hoodie, I'm like,
Speaker:oh, I'm so terrified of getting something wrong. Do you know what it is?
Speaker:It's because the clothing range, I haven't actually really put it on there.
Speaker:Okay. And there's reason for that, just to jump
Speaker:into a bit more. But when I launched the clothing range, which we have a clothing
Speaker:range to support the podcast, I didn't
Speaker:want to just emblaze the Talking Tradesman across
Speaker:it. Because to me, the most important thing is the message, which is
Speaker:let's talk, let's listen. And I thought
Speaker:myself that marketing a clothing range with the Talking
Speaker:Tradesman on, which would be a bit of like, I guess, like almost like
Speaker:fan merchandise has only got so much legs
Speaker:in it. With what I've done, it is about spreading
Speaker:the message more than anything. And to me, I just felt people would
Speaker:support the movement rather than support the brand. So
Speaker:all of the clothing, the talking tradesman is minimal. I mean,
Speaker:it's literally down there. You can barely see it. So it's on
Speaker:there, but it is not front and center because that's not what it's for. So
Speaker:yeah, the clothing is there to promote the
Speaker:Amazing. Go buy some clothes and
Speaker:go listen to the podcast. Russell, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so
Speaker:Off air, we'll geek out about podcast production and other marketing
